Broadband Phone Service

If you're investigating making telephone calls over the internet, you may find the terminology used somewhat bewildering. Here is a brief but annotated glossary of basic words used when discussing broadband telephone service.

ATA - This is an analog telephone adapter and is necessary to covert your analog telephone signals into the digital format necessary for VOIP. The adaptor has a regular telephone jack at one end and an Ethernet jack at the other for connection to your router. ATA's are sometimes called VOIP gateways or FXS adaptors.

Hard phone - A hard phone looks like an ordinary telephone but has an Ethernet jack rather than a regular telephone jack. There are three different ways a hard phone can be connected to your computer. If a stationary telephone is adequate, you can connect the hard phone unit straight to your router. For households where portability is important, cordless ethernet phones are available. The top of the line cordless models feature are set up with WiFi in the base unit so not physical connection to your router is necessary. Although broadband is preferable (more on why below) hard phones that have an integrated regular modem are available for dial-up users. Hard phones are superior in quality to soft phones but can cost between £50 and £200. All hard phones can transmit voice data and some have a video function as well.

IP telephone - this sort of telephone looks like a regular analog phone but has an Ethernet socket to connect directly to your router instead of a regular telephone jack. There are two types of IP telephones, hard and soft. These have separate entries in the glossary.

Skype - this is the most popular software for VOIP telephony. It is free to download and free to use for non-commercial purposes. Also, for a soft phone programme, the sound quality is very high. It is worth noting that Skype is only free for PC-to-PC calls. You have to pay a fee for calls from a normal phone to your PC.

Soft phone - This telephone is completely software based and is accessed using headphone and a microphone or a USB handset. The quality is not as good as a hard phone setup but it is much cheaper. Some programmes can even be downloaded free of charge. Soft phones can transmit both voice and video images although video quality will be extremely poor with a broadband connection at both ends.

VOIP - This is quite an important word as it is the technical term for broadband phone service. It is an acronym and stands for Voice Over Internet Provider. VOIP is pronounced as a word like SCUBA, not letter by letter like AA.

The most obvious, immediate advantage of using VOIP instead of a traditional landline is cost. Landlines can be quite expensive largely because of the relative monopoly enjoyed by BT. Customers have very few alternative choices so essentially the company can charge what they wish. Even if you don't make any telephone calls on a landline, you still have to pay for a line rental. While local rates are generally fairly reasonable the tariff for long distance telephone calls can be extortionate, particularly for those customers who wish to call outside of Western Europe or North America. Avoiding long distance tariffs is the primary reason many customers begin to use VOIP.

In theory all you need to start using VOIP technology is a microphone and a free software download. In practice, a set of headphones is necessary if you don't want your entire household to be privy to your calls. It is good to bear in mind that if headphones and a microphone aren't quite your style, you will need to install a hard phone system. As stated in the glossary, this will cost you anywhere from £50 to £200 depending on how sophisticated and portable you require the handset to be. If you are planning to call overseas, a handset is really a small investment against the savings you will make.

Although it is possible to use VOIP with a dial-up connection, you will find that a broadband internet connection will result in higher quality calls. The reason for this is simple. A broadband connection is capable of exchanging information many times faster than dial-up can so there will be far less delay between what you say and what the person with whom you are speaking hears.

Also, if you plan to use a video setup as well as audio, you will find that broadband is really the only choice for a satisfactory conversation. Dial-up users will likely find the video portion of Skype unusable because it is transmitted too slowly to be functional. With a broadband connection, the frame per second rate is much closer to real time and the video will be rendered as a continuous picture rather than a disjointed series of frames.